Hezbi Islami د افغانستان اسلامي حزب
Leader	Juma Khan Hamdard
Founder	Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
Founded	1976
Dissolved	1979
Preceded by	Muslim Youth
Succeeded by	HIG HIK HIKF
Ideology	Islamism
Party flag
Politics of Afghanistan Political parties Elections

Hezb-e-Islami (also Hezb-e Islami, Hezb-i-Islami, Hezbi-Islami, Hezbi Islami), lit. Islamic Party,^[1] was an Islamist organization that was commonly known for fighting the Communist Government of Afghanistan and their close ally the Soviet Union.^{[citation needed]} Founded and led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, it was established in Afghanistan in 1976.^{[citation needed]}

It grew out of the Muslim Youth organization, an Islamist organization founded in Kabul by students and teachers at Kabul University in 1969 to combat communism in Afghanistan.^[2] Its membership was drawn from ethnic Pashtuns, and its ideology from the Muslim Brotherhood and Abul Ala Maududi's Jamaat-e-Islami.^[2] Another source describes it as having splintered away from Burhanuddin Rabbani's original Islamist party, Jamiat-e Islami, in 1976, after Hekmatyar found that group too moderate and willing to compromise with others.^[3]

In 1979, Mulavi Younas Khalis split with Hekmatyar and established his own Hezbi Islami, known as the Khalis faction, with its power base in Nangarhar.^{[citation needed]} Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's faction is since then referred to as the Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin, or HIG.

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